Chop-Chop!

I’m really enjoying going back to basics with ingredients and dishes that I like to cook at home. I’m cooking better than ever. Last week was chicken breasts, a cut that I eat all the time but struggled for the longest time to find the right way to cook. This week, in the meat lesson, I decided to cook pork chop. It’s not something I make often. In fact, I hadn’t eaten it in a couple of years. So I’m glad the recipe in the lesson worked out so well. It ended up being the juciest and most flavorful pork chop I’ve ever made.

It also had to do with understanding pork chop cuts. I had no idea there’re several cuts! As you can see from the picture, I chose the rib chop because it’s good for fast-cooking, like grilling and searing. I brined the chop for about two hours before searing it on one side in the pan for three minutes, flipped the meat, and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees farenheit (about 204 degrees celcius). The recipe actually uses one pan throughout-—both on the stove and in the oven. But my pan is too big for the oven. I solved that issue by heating up the sheet pan in the oven before I started cooking the chop so that when I had to transfer the meat to the oven, the meat would be sitting on a hot surface. The color could have been darker. Maybe the pan should be a little hotter next time.

I pushed myself a little further by making pan sauce for the chop (FYI, I used beer instead of wine for its price). Of course, it would have been better if the pork chop had been cooking in the same pan the whole time, but the sauce still worked out OK, at least for a first try. It’s a little pale, though. Next time, I’ll try making it with red wine and green herbs. I also just found this recipe on Bon Appétit that should be useful in the future.

Just in case you’re wondering about the side dishes. They are steamed riceberry and Penelope Casas’s garlic green beans, which I talked about in an earlier post. It’s becoming a regular in my kitchen.

It’s a short one this time. The past few days have been crazy. But I’ll see you on Thursday!